Mothers who breast feed their infants need to preserve their privacy and consequently, when the mother and baby are in a public location and it becomes necessary to feed the infant, there is always a problem of concealing the nursing infant from the eyes of curious strangers. Furthermore, the sight of a nursing infant at its mother's breast is considered by many to be beautiful and has been the subject of many paintings, poems, and the like. However, it is desirable to afford some degree of seclusion to the mother and infant, while at the same time providing a means by which the domestic scene is not forced or imposed on the immediate public.
Others have proposed various garments by which the mother's breast and nursing infant are obscured, as evidence by the U.S. Patents to Dodd U.S. Pat. No 4,106,122; Kaufer U.S. Pat No. 4,468,816; and Kendrick U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,611. These garments have the drawback of being difficult to dress in public, or alternatively, the garments must be worn all the time.
For example, while riding an airline there is very little maneuvering room and if an infant is to be nursed, it must be done while seated in the aircraft cabin because there simply is no other convenient place of privacy available to the mother and infant.
It would be desirable to have made available a nursing shawl which can be conveniently placed about the front of the mother and positioned to cover the nursing infant, thereby concealing or obscuring the nursing infant and preserving the privacy of the two. It would be desirable that the mother and baby be able to see one another in close proximity, but that their details are distorted from a distance, thereby providing observation by the mother and baby of each other, and preserving the privacy of the two, while at the same time others have the feeling that their privacy has not been intruded upon.
A nursing shawl which achieves the above desirable attributes is the subject of the present invention.